# YouTube Channel Transcript Scraper | $2/1K API (`beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper`) Actor

Get transcripts for every video of a YouTube channel or playlist. Pay only for delivered transcripts — videos without captions are free.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Jeffrey Inman](https://apify.com/beacondata) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$2.00 / 1,000 transcript delivereds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## YouTube Channel Transcript Scraper

Turn an **entire YouTube channel or playlist into text**. Give it a channel URL, an `@handle`, or a playlist link — it finds the videos and delivers every transcript as clean text, timestamped segments, and SRT. No YouTube API key, no cookies, no browser.

**You only pay for transcripts that are actually delivered.** Videos without captions, deleted or restricted videos cost $0 and are reported as typed errors instead.

**$2 per 1,000 transcripts, and the first ~2,500 a month are effectively free:** Apify's free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, and Store Actor charges draw on it. Built for apps that hit YouTube's cloud-server block (`LOGIN_REQUIRED` / "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot"): the Actor rotates player clients and retries through residential IPs so your server doesn't have to.

Perfect for feeding a whole channel into an LLM, building a searchable archive of a creator's content, podcast/interview mining, or monitoring competitors' content.

### Input

```json
{
    "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA",
    "maxVideos": 100,
    "language": "en",
    "preferManual": true
}
```

- `source` — any of: channel URL (`youtube.com/@handle`, `/channel/UC…`, `/c/…`, `/user/…`), a bare `@handle`, a channel id, or a playlist URL/id.
- `maxVideos` — how many of the newest videos to process (1–5000).
- `language` — preferred ISO code; falls back to the best available track and tells you which one you got.
- `preferManual` — prefer human-made captions over auto-generated ones (default on).

### What you get for each video

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `text` | Full transcript as one clean string — ready for LLMs, embeddings, search |
| `segments` | `[{ start, dur, text }]` — timestamped segments in seconds |
| `srt` | Ready-to-save `.srt` subtitle file |
| `title`, `channel`, `language`, `isAutoGenerated`, `availableLanguages` | Metadata for filtering |

Videos that can't deliver return `{ videoId, url, error, errorType }` (`NO_CAPTIONS`, `RESTRICTED`, `NOT_FOUND`, …) and are **not charged**.

### Why this one

- **Failures are free.** A 500-video channel where 80 videos have no captions bills you for 420, not 500.
- **Resilient fetching.** Automatic retries with rotating sessions when YouTube throttles.
- **One call does the whole channel.** No need to collect video URLs first.

Need transcripts for a specific list of video URLs instead? Use the companion [YouTube Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/beacondata/youtube-transcript-scraper).

### Use it from code

```bash
curl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/beacondata~youtube-channel-transcript-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"source": "@NASA", "maxVideos": 50}'
```

Works everywhere Apify does: REST API, scheduled runs, webhooks, the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp) (AI agents can call it as a tool), n8n, Make, Zapier, LangChain.

### Honest limitations

- Private, age-restricted, and members-only videos can't be read (`RESTRICTED` — free).
- A transcript only exists if the video has captions on YouTube (`NO_CAPTIONS` — free).
- Selects among the caption tracks the video actually has; no machine translation.
- Enumeration returns a channel's regular uploads (newest first); a playlist is processed in its own order.

### Automate it with n8n

A ready-made workflow turns a whole channel into a transcript knowledge base in Google Sheets — one row per video with title, URL and full text. In n8n: **Workflow → Import from URL**:

```
https://inmanjeffrey89-cell.github.io/data-tools/workflows/t2-channel-transcripts-sheets.json
```

No community nodes (plain HTTP Request) — works on n8n Cloud and self-hosted. [More ready-made workflows](https://inmanjeffrey89-cell.github.io/data-tools/n8n-workflows).

### Support

Found a bug or need a field added? Open an issue on the Issues tab — it's read daily and answered.

# Actor input Schema

## `source` (type: `string`):

One YouTube channel or playlist to pull every transcript from. Accepts a channel URL (youtube.com/@handle or /channel/UC…), a /c/ or /user/ URL, a bare @handle, a raw channel ID, or a playlist URL/ID. The actor finds the videos for you — you do not need to list them.

## `maxVideos` (type: `integer`):

How many of the newest videos to transcribe, from 1 to 5000. You are only charged for transcripts actually delivered, so a higher cap never costs more than the videos that really have captions. Default 100.

## `language` (type: `string`):

ISO code of the caption language you prefer (en, es, de, pt…). Falls back to the best available track per video; each output row's 'language' field shows what was returned. Default en.

## `preferManual` (type: `boolean`):

true returns human-written captions over YouTube's auto-generated ones when both exist (usually more accurate). Default true.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA",
  "maxVideos": 100,
  "language": "en",
  "preferManual": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `transcripts` (type: `string`):

One item per video: videoId, title, channel, language, isAutoGenerated, availableLanguages, text, segments, srt. Failed videos carry error + errorType and are not charged.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA"
}' |
apify call beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,beacondata/youtube-channel-transcript-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/E5sl6pIsQ0Hb53pIY/builds/AoxeJieSgWL1rfqZg/openapi.json